The First Half Performance Cost Us - Slade

17 April 2017

TOWN boss Russell Slade put the defeat down to his side's first half performance at Cheltenham.

Speaking after the game, he said: "It was a poor first half performance from our point of view. Our decision making was poor - whether to play short, whether to play long. We looked a bit lethargic, and they were playing the pitch an awful lot better than we were playing it.

"They were asking questions with balls th"I've seen both sides a little bit now – the consistency that the team has lacked all season," Slade said.

"You can't rock up and not be right on it or relentless at what you're trying to do for 90 minutes. You can't get away with it.

"When we're not doing well like that and things aren't going right, we need to regroup, but we need to regroup at nil-nil, or one-nil at the worst.

The goals were poor – we warned them about that movement from the corner where we've lost our player, and secondly we've given the ball away in the middle of the park, turned it over.

"They're individual errors, and you can't make those – you'll get punished."

On the game, which saw Town miss out on the chance to record three wins in a row for the first time this season, Slade added: "It was a poor first-half performance from our point of view.

"Our decision-making was poor, whether to play short or to play long, we looked a bit lethargic, and they were playing the pitch an awful lot better than we were playing it.

"They were asking questions with balls that they were tucking in behind our full-backs, turning our back four and winning free-kicks and corners and putting us under pressure.

"We allowed them to service our box too easily, and it needed to change at half-time."